Stay
by AJgrl101
Summary: Some rambling involving flashbacks from Dom and Letty's past as well as their meeting in London, set to Rihanna's song "Stay". I started writing this before most of the spoilers for Fast 6 were released so it's a little different. One shot.


**So I've been working on this for a while and my goal was to get it done before the movie came out. I barely made it :) Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this and if you haven't heard the song I highly recommend listening to it, it's one of my favorites. Thanks for all of your support on Trophy, and enjoy Stay! :)**

_**Stay by Rihanna feat. Mikky Ekko**_

_All along there was a fever_

_A cold sweat hot-headed believer_

_I threw my hands in the air and said show me something_

_He said if you dare come a little closer_

_Round and around and around and around we go_

_Oh now tell me now tell me now tell me now you know_

The feeling had been there since the first day she saw him, standing next to his father and peering into the engine of that 70's Charger.

_**(LA- 1990)**__ Ten year old Letty sat on the hood of her father's car, her feet swinging back and forth as she watched the moving guys unload the trucks. She hated moving, it was all she ever did due to her father's occupation in the Army. _

_She sighed, glancing around at her surroundings, and paused when something caught her eye. _

_A tall man was leaning over the engine of an old 70's Charger, his clothes covered in oil and grease. A boy, about thirteen, was peering into the engine beside him. _

_She hopped down from the car, making her way across the street and into the small one car garage, neither the man or the boy aware of her presence. She admired the sleek black paint of the car and the chrome that outlined it. "Wow." She said quietly, forgetting that she wasn't supposed to be there. _

_The tall man turned at the sound of her voice, a gentle smile on his face. "Well hello." He said, kneeling down to be at eye level with her. "Are you our new neighbor?"_

_She only nodded, feeling embarrassed at the situation. _

"_I'm Tony." He said, wiping his hands with a rag before holding one out to her. _

_She took his large hand in her small one. "Leticia. But I like to be called Letty."_

"_Letty it is then. Dominic," He called, turning to the boy that was still peering into the open engine. "Come say hello to Letty."_

_The boy trudged over, uninterested. "Hello." He said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. _

_She may have only been ten years old, but she had the feeling that this boy was going to turn into more than just her neighbor. _

_It could have been the fact that she loved cars and apparently so did he. Maybe it was that uninterested look on his face. Maybe it was that deep voice that she hadn't expected to come from the boy that was only a few years older than her. Whatever it was, Letty Ortiz fell for it immediately._

And she stayed that way for years. Her feelings never changed, but her attitude did. She was very good at hiding it, the way she felt about him because she knew he didn't feel the same way. Then, when she turned sixteen, he _did_ feel the same. It wasn't an overnight realization, it took him over a year to come to the conclusion that his feelings were _not_ going away. And in that year, Letty had gotten impatient. Impatient with the looks and the way he scared any guy off that got near her. Impatient with the fact that he didn't seem to mind kissing her, but a relationship was still farfetched and he continued his one night stands with _skanks_. So it was during a party one night that she told him if he didn't admit to his feelings and give her what she wanted, then she was done trying.

_**(LA- 1997)**__ Letty glared at Dom as he allowed a skank to sit on his lap and trail her hand down his chest. They had been tip toeing around each other for the last year, but Dom still made no move to end his ways. She was tired of it. Tired of waiting around for him to finally grow up and take the chance. So if he wasn't going to come to the conclusion on his own, she would just do it for him. _

_She growled as the skank's hand brushed over Dom's crotch, and she pushed herself away from the wall, walking over to where they sat. She grabbed Dom's hand, scowling at him when he hesitated to move, and pulled him into the kitchen. _

"_Out." She commanded the people crowded in the kitchen, all of them making themselves scarce at her tone. She pulled Dom to stand in front of the counter, trapping him there with her body. _

"_What the hell is wrong with you, Letty?"_

"_What do you want, Dom?" She asked, her jaw tensing. _

_His eyebrows arched in confusion. "What do you mean?"_

"_I mean do you want me or them?" She pointed in the direction of the living room, indicating the skanks. "Because from what I've seen, it's them. And if that's the case, then I'm done."_

_Realization flashed across his face, and the pieces clicked into place. He was being a coward, wanting to stick to what he knew and not put in the effort that a relationship required. But the thought of never getting to kiss those lips of hers again pushed every fear out of his mind. "I don't want them. I want you." He admitted. _

_She titled her head to the side in contemplation. Grabbing his arm again, she pulled him back into the living room, stopping in the middle of the floor and in view of everyone. "Show me." She challenged, throwing her hands in the air. _

"_Well come closer." He smirked, placing a hand on her hip and drawing her to him in one swift pull. His lips crashed down on hers, kissing her roughly and hungrily. _

_She pulled away from his lips, keeping her forehead pressed against his. "Tell me you're sure about this. That there's no turning back."_

_He smiled, his hands traveling past her hips and up her arms until they cupped her face. "I know now. You're the only one I want, Letty."_

_Not really sure how to feel about it_

_Something in the way you move_

_Makes me feel like I can't live without you _

_And it takes me all the way_

_I want you stay_

She sometimes cursed herself for falling in love with him. Being in love with Dominic Toretto had its pros and cons. For one, she couldn't trust the man completely, and with good reason. She sometimes felt that his reputation was more important to him than she was, and at other times, when there was no one else around, she laughed at herself for thinking it. Letty's relationship with Dom was an everyday roller coaster, one that had her questioning him one moment and questioning herself the next.

But there was something about watching him walk slowly through a crowd of admirers with a cocky smirk on his face and his eyes focused on her, that made all questions disappear. Maybe it was the way he took his time, adding to the anticipation. Maybe it was the way he shifted from the pawing hands of _skanks_, the only time he did that was when he was on his way to her. Whatever it was, any doubt that she had vanished like those hopeful smiles on the faces of _skanks_.

_**( LA- 1997)**__ The red Mazda raced across the finish line, leaving the other drivers in the dust. The car squealed to an abrupt stop, the door swinging open as Dom stepped out of it, his left foot first and then his right, keeping his left hand on the door handle as he slowly pushed himself out of the car. He was immediately engulfed by a sea of skanks, their hands darting out to touch him. _

_He pushed the car door closed, his eyes searching for the Latina in the crowd, finding her standing outside of it with her arms crossed and eyebrows raised. _

_He smirked, slowing his pace and shifting from side to side to avoid the pawing hands of skanks. He brushed some of them off, keeping his eyes locked on the amused Latina. Once he was free of the skanks, he slowed his pace even more, well aware of her impatience._

_She rolled her eyes at him, shifting her weight to her left foot and impatiently tapping her right foot on the ground. She smirked at the swagger in his step, the arrogance on his face. _

_He stopped in front of her, intending to drag this out as long as possible and drive her crazy. But he felt her hand grab a fistful of his shirt as he was pulled to her. _

_She kissed him roughly, pressing herself against him. _

"_What's got you so worked up?" He mumbled against her lips. _

_She pulled back slightly, a smirk on her lips. "Something in the way you move." _

Although she would never have admitted it, Dominic Toretto was the one thing she couldn't live without. Until the day he took it upon himself to make her. And she took it upon herself to bring him back, willing to pay the ultimate price. But there was just something in the way he moved, the night that kept replaying in her mind, that made her feel like she couldn't live without him. And there are days, like today as he stands in front of her, his eyes promising to never abandon her again even while knowing the trouble that she's in, that she wishes that she could.

_It's not much of a life you're living_

_It's not just something you take it's given_

_Round and around and around and around we go_

_Oh now tell me now tell me now tell me now you know_

Her life had never been a normal one, but _damn_, living as a ghost and hijacking military convoys with a ruthless ex-soldier was a whole new kind of crazy in Dom's mind. She had taken her life to a whole new kind of danger, running with someone that didn't give a shit about what happened to her. And he can't help but think that this is the life he's given her.

Breaking the law is all she's ever known. Illegal racing and hijacking was a life she had learned to live with a long time ago, so it was no surprise that when she found herself alone that kind of life was the one she continued to turn to, even with all of the signs that pointed to the danger she was putting herself in with Owen.

She hadn't given much thought to how this would affect Dom, mostly because she woke up and the one missing piece of the puzzle was the night he left her. She had all of these memories with a man who seemed to love her, but suddenly disappeared from her memory and she couldn't understand why. All she knew was that she was _damned_ pissed off at him and whatever he did was painful enough for her to subconsciously block the memory while retaining every other.

He had given her this, a life without him and a missing piece that she wasn't even sure she wanted to remember. Maybe it _was_ better to be pissed off at him without knowing the reason, at least she didn't feel the pain. That is until she learned that he was building a life without her, with a Brazilian woman, and that was when she decided she would have her own life without him, even if it wasn't much of a life at all.

Then Dominic Toretto showed up, with his team behind him and the Brazilian woman nowhere to be found, with a promise that he wasn't leaving London without her.

_**(London- 2013)**__ He slid the car to a stop, wasting no time in climbing out of it and approaching the girl that had haunted his dreams. _

_She was leaning against the car, bracing herself against it with her hands while her head was bowed._

_Even with this being the second time he had come face to face with her in London, his face still registered the shock that had been there since she climbed out of that Jenson and pulled the trigger of a gun pointed at him. _

"_Are you just going to stare?" She said, slowly lifting her head to look at him. _

"_How are you standing in front of me right now?" He asked, ignoring her question. "You were dead, Letty. Gone. Never coming back."_

"_I'm sure you would love to have that still be true right about now." She couldn't help the smart remark that tumbled out of her lips. _

_She had only found out the real reason Dom wasn't chasing her when he arrived in London; Owen seemed to find it amusing that she hadn't known about her supposed death and also deemed the information useless to her. She was his most prized member with her knowledge of cars as well as her ability to drive them. She had experience in hijacking, and most of all, she was lost. It may have only been one memory out of thousands, but it held so many answers. Then when she was made aware that Dom was under the impression that her body was six feet under the dirt, well, who would spend their life chasing a ghost? But the question still remained as to why he one day disappeared from her memory, like something in a magic trick he was gone, except she couldn't bring him back._

"_What the fuck, Letty?" He spat out. "I thought I lost you. I fucking killed for you!"_

"_I didn't know." She said calmly, unfazed by his roar. _

"_Didn't know? How the hell could you not know that you were presumed dead?" He growled, stepping closer to her, talking through clenched teeth. "I killed the man that supposedly took your life, Letty."_

"_Well he might as well have." Her voice got lower, eventually going into a whisper. "What the hell does it look like I'm living, Dom?"_

"_A life I never wanted you to have. Why the hell do you think I left the Dominican, Letty? To stop you from being the object of the Fed's attention! I didn't want to take you down with me." He stopped, watching her expression change at the mentioning of that night. _

_Her breath caught in her throat as the images flashed through her head. She saw herself hanging off the back of the gas tanker, Dom yelling at her to jump, __**I've got you**__, her body launching towards his car, the impact as she fell onto it, his hand grasping her forearm. She saw the burning gas tanker rolling down the narrow road as she screamed Dom's name, the tanker narrowly missing the top of the car. She saw Dom walking towards her on the beach, __**There she is**__, she felt his arm around her, __**I hear Rio is nice this time of year **__she had said, his gruff voice in her ear, __**Cops are getting hungrier**__, her own voice saying __**Then I guess we're doing our job**__. Then she felt the sting that came with his next words. __**I'm a walking target. I don't want you around when they catch up to me. **__The images came with the pain, the pain of reliving it all over again and in quick succession, causing her head to pound._

"_Letty," Dom said in a worried tone, stepping closer to her and placing his hands on her arms._

_She squeezed her eyes shut, holding her head in her hands. "I believed you. I fucking believed you." She spat out. "__**Ride or Die, remember? Dom, how long have we been doing this? And now, all of the sudden out of nowhere, it's too dangerous? Come on. We'll figure it out. We always do."**__ She repeated the words in a quiet whisper, the words that were supposed to make him stay. "I did it for you." She said louder. "I fucking did it for you!" She screamed, grabbing hold of his face the same way she did that night on the beach. "I just wanted you back."_

_Not really sure how to feel about it_

_Something in the way you move_

_Makes me feel like I can't live without you _

_And it takes me all the way_

_I want you stay_

It had been the hardest thing for him to understand, how he fell in love with her without even knowing it. She was the one girl in the world that could piss him off with one word and the only person that could calm him down. It wasn't an overnight realization, it was an uphill battle for both of them to finally give in. But it was under the cover of night, the same night that his father was killed, that Dom knew despite what they went through, Letty was the one girl that he wanted to stick around.

_**(LA- 1996)**__ Darkness enclosed the room, the curtains were pulled closed and anything that emitted any light had been broken. His room looked as if a tornado had come through it, destroying anything in its path. And that tornado had been Dominic Toretto. _

_He had controlled his emotions around everyone, mostly for Mia's sake. But by the time he was alone, his emotions broke. His hands had curled into fists and went through the wall. He overturned his dresser, his clothes spilling out of the drawers. He flipped over the small table by his bed, a picture frame that held a photo of his father falling and shattering. And then it was as if all of his strength was drained from him. He collapsed on his bed, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, his ragged breathing filling the room. _

_And that was how he was when Letty cautiously opened the bedroom door and crept into the room. While anyone else would be taken aback by the state of the room, she only cared about the broken man sitting on the edge of the bed. A man that, in all of the time she had known him, she had never seen cry. _

_It seemed as if her feet couldn't carry her fast enough, as she approached him and gripped his wrists in her hands. She slowly pulled his hands away before placing her own hands on either side of his face and lifting his head up. She had been expecting the pain to be evident in his eyes, but the eyes that were staring back at her were blank and emotionless. As if everything had drained out of him and all that was left was the shell of him. _

"_Dom," She whispered. "Don't shut me out. You can't do this alone." _

_He didn't respond, only let his body fall back onto the bed, turning away from her, lying on his left side._

_She sighed, closing her eyes for a brief second before she turned to walk out of the room, but a strained voice stopped her. _

"_Letty," He called out, almost too low for her to hear. _

_She stopped and turned her head to the side, glancing at him over her shoulder. _

"_Stay." His voice cracked on the word. _

_Letty didn't hesitate. She crawled onto the bed beside him, lying down on her right side so that she was facing him. _

_He reached for her with his arm, pulling her closer to him with his arm draped over her waist. _

_Her fingers trailed up the length of his side, her nails raking against his shirt. "You don't always have to be such a tough guy. Even the strongest break sometimes, Dom."_

_His eyes moved to hers and almost instantly glossed over. He closed them before the tears could fall, moving even closer to her and tucking his head under her chin. _

_One of her hands held the back of his head as the other soothingly rubbed his back and she pretended not to feel the tears that soaked her skin._

There was really no way for him to make sense of it that night. His emotions were too sensitive for him to come to any realization about his feelings for Letty. All he knew was that she was there for him in his worst times, times when other people would turn and run.

But his heart felt faster than his brain, and after that night he found himself often staring at the Latina without ever thinking about it. And on the one night that he acted without thinking, she quickly reminded him just how dangerous that was around her.

_**(LA- 1996)**__ Letty wasn't much for dancing when she was sober, but that was thrown out the window when she got drunk. She'd dance to any song, anywhere, any time. And it really didn't matter who was watching, as long as they didn't touch._

_But Dominic Toretto didn't seem to get the memo that night, and after a few agonizing minutes of watching, he did the unthinkable. _

_If anyone on his team had been sober, or at least paying attention to where he was heading, they would have stopped him. But as it was, Mia was in her room, and the three amigos were a little preoccupied with their skank of the night. _

_So when no one was there to remind him of the danger of the situation he was about to put himself in, Dominic Toretto sauntered over to the dancing Latina. _

_Her back was turned to him and he took the opportunity to admire her ass as she moved her hips to the beat of the song blasting from the stereo. _

_He smirked and placed his hands on her hips, roughly pulling her back against him. _

_She immediately stopped her movements and turned to face whoever the hell had a big enough pair to put their hands on her. Her arm swung around in one quick motion and connected with a face. Her eyes narrowed at the person that was standing in front of her, one hand over his eye. "What the hell, Toretto?" She exclaimed, gesturing towards him. _

"_Damn," He hissed. "I should ask you the same thing. Why the fuck did you punch me?"_

"_Because I don't like suddenly being groped and I don't know who the hell it is."_

"_So, I can grope you when I say it's me?" He asked with a smirk on his face, his hand falling to his side._

"_No." She snapped. "Why the hell did you do that anyway?"_

_He shrugged. "I felt like it."_

"_Really?" She scoffed, stepping closer to him with her hands on her hips. "Well, why is that?"_

_He shrugged again, slipping his arms through the spaces between her arms and her body, wrapping them around her waist. "Something in the way you move."_

_The reason I hold on_

_Cause I need this hole gone_

_Funny you're the broken one_

_But I'm the only one who needed saving_

_Cause when you never see the light_

_It's hard to know which one of us is caving_

She told him to let her go. To go back to his life in Brazil and forget all about Letty Ortiz, because according to her that girl was gone. But there was a hole in his heart that continued to get bigger with each passing day that she wasn't there. And it was the reason that, despite the anger and hatred that she fed him every time they came in contact, he still continued to hold on. It was kind of funny actually, how he had broken her yet he needed her to feel whole again.

_**(London- 2013)**__ His forehead was creased in confusion at what he just witnessed. He kept a tight grip on her upper arms, his eyes widening in understanding. She had forgotten. Forgotten the night he broke his promise to her, and in turn broke the girl that was Letty Ortiz._

_She jerked her hands back as if being burned, sliding them down the legs of her jeans as if to wipe away the feel of him. She shifted so that his hands fell from her arms and stepped back until she was leaning against the car again. What little light that illuminated her face she turned away from, keeping her emotions hidden in the dark._

"_You didn't remember?" He asked quietly._

_She slowly shook her head, crossing her arms. "It was the only thing." _

_He didn't try to explain, nor did he try to approach her because he was damn sure any returning contact from her would probably be a fist to his bullet wound. Han had told him how she reacted that next morning when she woke up and found him gone. She had trashed the cabin and nearly beat the shit out of Han when he told her he had no idea where Dom went. To have that forgotten and be forced to relive it with the man that caused it all standing right in front of her, it just might cause more pain than that night. _

"_Not that it matters anyway. I wish I could forget about you altogether." Her voice was unwavering, making him wonder if everything she had been through had finally caused her to give up on them. "You need to go, Dom. The Letty you want back is long gone. And despite your efforts she ain't coming back. So run along back to your Brazilian skank and don't come back. I can't promise you it will be your shoulder next time."_

"_You really think that shit is going to work on me?" He asked, shaking his head at the thought. "After all this shit you really think I'm going to turn around and leave you with that son of a bitch?"_

"_You can't fucking save me, Dom! You have to let me go. Because God knows __**he**__ won't."_

"_And you're fucking crazy if you think __**I**__ am." He had no intentions of giving up and apparently neither did she. He stepped closer to her, bringing his hands up to cup her face. _

_She tensed under his touch, reminding herself just how dangerous this situation was for both of them. _

"_I missed you so fucking much, Letty. You don't know how hard it was being without you."_

_Her eyes fluttered closed before she snapped them back open, her gaze hardening. "I have an idea." _

_Not really sure how to feel about it_

_Something in the way you move_

_Makes me feel like I can't live without you _

_And it takes me all the way_

_I want you stay_

_I want you stay_

_**(London- 2013)**__ She hadn't spoken since her near death experience of being catapulted into the air a few days after her last encounter with Dom. She sat in the back seat of the car, with Dom driving and Brian in the passenger seat. She knew she should be paying attention to where they were going, because wherever it was she wasn't planning on staying. But while her eyes were open, she wasn't really looking at anything. Her mind was reeling at the fact that Dom launched himself into the air without even thinking about what was below. It was an understatement to say that they were lucky. But even with that, she knew she couldn't stay. Not only would she be putting his life in danger, but the lives of the rest of his team as well. She couldn't have something like that on her conscience, she had too much already. _

_The car screeched to a halt and at first she didn't realize it, but then he said her name and she turned to see his hand outstretched, an offer to help her out of the car. She avoided his hand and climbed out, noting that the abandoned warehouse was a perfect hiding spot, and really, she should have known. _

_He walked slowly beside her, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. _

_They followed Brian into the warehouse, everyone's heads turning to look at them when they entered. _

_Dom lead her to his makeshift bedroom, where he had set up a makeshift bed out of sleeping bags and blankets. "You can take this room." He grabbed another sleeping bag from the corner of the room. "I'll go to the main room."_

"_I'm not staying." She finally said, running a hand through her hair. _

_He stopped in the doorway of the room, dropping the sleeping bag to the floor and turning to face her. "You are __**not **__going back to him, Letty." _

"_If I don't, he's just going to come find me." She said quickly. "You have a team in there, and I'm risking all of their lives if I stay. I can't have that on my conscience, Dominic. I have too much already."_

_His face softened in understanding. He had seen firsthand the destruction that Shaw had caused, so many innocent lives lost because of a ruthless ex-soldier. And Dom knew that it tore Letty apart inside, to be involved in so much death and destruction. It was never what they were about._

"_No one here blames you for what he did, Letty. And they all agreed to this, to making our family whole again."_

_She opened her mouth to say something about their family never being whole again. Jesse was gone, Vince was gone, and only God knows where Leon is. Their family was broken, and it didn't matter if she stayed or not, that was always going to be true. But when she saw the look in his eyes, one that said he knew exactly what she was thinking, she couldn't get the words out. _

"_Three of them don't even know me." She said quietly, glancing into the other room where the occupants pretended not to hear. "Not the real me anyway. They only know what they've seen." _

"_And there's four people that have told them that what they've seen is not what you are." He stepped towards her, placing his hands on either side of her face. _

_She tensed under his touch, but she didn't pull away. "I __**shot**__ you, Dom." _

"_You were confused, Letty. I thought you were __**dead**__, that hurt worse than a bullet to the shoulder."_

"_If I had known-" She began._

"_I know." He cut her off. "But you're here now. Stay."_

_She sighed, pulling her face away from his hands and sitting cross legged on the makeshift bed, her hands in her lap and her head bowed. "When I saw you __**willingly**__ jump out of your car and into the air without ever looking down, I understood what you felt when I was on that gas tanker. I understood what it felt like to think that the person you love could die because of you. I didn't know what was down there, I didn't know how we were going to come out of that alive. I just saw __**you**__." She sighed, lifting her head to meet his eyes. "And I understood why you left." She admitted in a whisper. _

_Dom felt the weight that he had been carrying since that night lift off his shoulders. That had been his one hope; that one day she would understand why he had done it._

"_But," She began. "That doesn't mean I don't think it was __**stupid**__."_

_Dom chuckled. "I knew that was coming."_

_A small smirk appeared on her lips, but she dipped her head to hide it. "It would be the safest thing for you," She said, glancing up at him and then averting her eyes to the main room. "And them, if I left. But I know that if I do, I'll never see you again." She turns her head again, her eyes boring into his. "But this __**is**__ dangerous, Dom. Owen is dangerous. You're not going to stop him easily."_

_That was enough of an answer for him. "I don't need easy." He said in his confident, gruff voice. "I'll do whatever it takes to get you out of this mess."_

"_I know." She answered quietly, moving to lie down on the makeshift bed, lying on her back with her eyes directed at the ceiling. Her teeth chewing nervously at her lower lip. _

_Dom turned towards the doorway, shuffling over to the grab the sleeping bag he had placed there. And he was almost through the doorway when she muttered the one word that made the sleeping bag drop from his grasp without hesitation. _

"_Stay."_


End file.
